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The Main Reason Santa is So Jolly is Because He Knows Where All the Bad Girls Live. – George Carlin
By dusk on Christmas Eve, Nora was so nervous she was practically twitching.
Because Rasmussen Consultancy was closed between Yule and January 3rd she was hastily trying to find something to do to keep from having too much time to think.
Loki had had to go back to London, (where he had abandoned many of his important papers, his laptop, and Charles, as well as the job he was in the middle of) the afternoon after they had slept together-
No, after they had fucked. They had had sex. Mated. Screwed. Hooked up. Banged.
Done whatever it was they had done. Nora still hadn’t quite decided.
Regardless of what it was, Loki had done a ritual involving writing and fire and light and a gash had opened in reality in his bathroom, and after not kissing goodbye, he had stepped into it, promising to be back on the 24th.
It had been four years since she had bothered to decorate for Christmas and while it was much easier physically to do so after the clearing house party she had had in the fall, it was emotionally harder. The ornaments that her aunt had collected over her years touring – a set of carved wood animals dressed with the paint chipping off, cool, elongated glass baubles that looked like atomic age icicles, tinsel garland that Nora used to wrap around herself like a fur stole when she was a girl – were neatly packed away in boxes that had gathered dust since Claire died.
Nora had just assumed none of the lights would work and so she got Loki’s driver, Nigel, to take her to Target and bought enough sets for both the rotund tree she had picked out, as well as the bushes out front and the inside of her picture window.
Multi-colored and non-Led. White lights were for the tasteful folks in the suburbs. She didn’t know who the LED lights were for.
The night after he had left, her house was half decorated when large number of boxes started arriving at her house.
A really, really large number. All of them wrapped, and all with a tag in Charles calligraphic hand saying they were from Loki and not to be opened until Christmas.
It was a good thing that she had given the tiny dining room set that used to sit in the alcove next to the kitchen away or there wouldn’t have been anywhere to put them. As it was, it looked like Santa had decided to store all of the gifts for the south side in her bungalow.
The next night she had Marissa and Dre over to watch Christmas specials and eat pizza. Since they were still arguing with both of their families about where they would be spending the holiday they were both relieved to go somewhere quiet.
Marissa stared at the pile of gifts, a mix of envy and pleasure on her face. “You must have the most magic pussy in the damn world, girl. You know, if I ever change my mind about Dre I might have to check that out.”
“Shhhh… Cold Miser is on. He’s my favorite.”
Loki did not call her that night, or the next day.
Nora finished decorating and started baking. She baked gingerbread, realized that she still wasn’t very good at it, and borrowed Nigel again to go Andersonville. After hitting the Swedish Bakery, Ann Sather’s, and Wikstrom’s she felt she had every Scandinavian thing that Loki might be interested in eating or drinking that wouldn’t also make her vomit. For herself she picked up the makings for Old Fashioneds, a box of Triskets, and a port wine cheese ball.
She bought Nigel a coffeecake. Because everyone needed an extra coffeecake during the holidays.
Loki still didn’t call. Nora spent her night not calling him and wrapping gifts while “Holiday Inn” and then “The Bishop’s Wife” played in the background.
And so by dusk on Christmas Eve, Nora was so nervous she was practically twitching.
The lights were all on, and she had lit some candles that she had found in a box under the sink, so the living room glowed. Charles Brown’s beautiful slow voice on lightly scratched vinyl played on her aunt’s old hi-fi. The whole spindle was stacked with Christmas music.
It was very romantic. Which Nora was beginning to reconsider. She was also reconsidering her dress. She had dug through the box of her aunt’s beautiful old clothes that she hadn’t been able to part with until she found the one she remembered loving as a girl.
It was from the early 60s, made of deep green velvet that was only slightly worn around the sweetheart neckline. It was too short for her, but the waist hit in the right place, so she wore it. When she had originally thought of it she had thought how delighted Loki would be to see her dressed in it. It might make her feel vaguely lovely.
Now, after dressing, and adding some select pieces of Claire’s best costume jewelry on to match it, she just felt like an idiot waiting for a man who had not called.
At seven Nora made herself a drink, drained it, and then started up the stairs to change into something a little less conspicuously “please like me” when her doorbell rang.
Loki stood on Nora’s porch for about twenty minutes before he rang her bell.
He felt like the most immeasurable simpleton for it, but it couldn’t be helped. He was immobile.
Nora had bedecked her abject little home for the holiday with colored lights and, because where Nora was there was music, he could hear soft singing from a recording. At one point he heard her sing along and pressed his forehead to her door.
Just ring the bell, fool.
But he stayed still.
For two days he had worked to extricate Charles from some small legal issues with the shockingly rigid magical community of England. Eventually an offer of a discount on his services and a few more overt bribes had made the problem of Mr. Hall-Greene’s disappearance had likewise disappear. And for two days he had thought of little but Nora.
Well, Nora and the exchange rate for said bribes, but mostly Nora.
Nora in his bed, her hair wild, her moans blatant, her pleasure splendid.
Nora looking over her shoulder at him as she mounted him backwards and then rode him until they could neither remember simple matters like language or the rest of existence.
Nora giving him a slightly hurt, slightly confused look as he stepped into the between of the worlds to head back to London.
It had not occurred to him until on his flight back that he should have kissed her at that point, told her how much he would miss her, how leaving her then made him ache. That having not done it then, he should have called her in the meantime and reassured her.
But he had been afraid to. Loki was rather terrified because of his always too thin, always too tired, utterly powerless mortal lover.
She may have regretted what had passed between them, what she had said. Not that he did not think she had meant it, but rather that she might feel it was a mistake, that he was too damaged and vile to deserve the gift of her…the gift of herself.
And she had not called him, either.
Finally he rang the bell.
He heard the clattering sound of heels on wood, and he saw her peek through the curtains. Seeing him, her face was expressionless and when the curtain swished back into place it still took her the space of several heartbeats to open the door, which she then whipped open.
“I’m sorry about my outfit, it’s too much. I’m going to change. Make yourself a drink. And I bought mead. But I didn’t know if should be cold or not. But I figure you can chill it yourself if you need to, so go ahead-“ she was speaking very quickly, but Loki couldn’t hear any of it.
Nora’s short hair gleamed in the light from the candles that were lit around the room. It was pulled back from her face by a golden satin band, and her long throat was wrapped in champagne coloured beads, and she wore…
Loki felt his lip raise and his mouth open a bit as his breath came out in heavy huffs, as if he were on the battlefield. His body quaked with need and his prick hurt him in its displeasure at not being where it wanted, where it needed to be.
Grabbing her by the waist, he pulled Nora tight against him, his mouth covering hers, forcing it open, licking deep into its heat, tasting the sweetness of bourbon and of her. She gasped around him, and then his greedy mouth was at her shoulders, at the swells of her breasts, and he heard her, “I thought you might be done-“
No talking. He took her mouth again and lifted her, carrying her into the living room.
Perching Nora on a small, hopefully sturdy table, Loki pushed up her skirt and was delighted and a little shocked to see nothing. Just a pair of black stockings with lace tops circling her thighs and her lovely, neatly trimmed cunt, with her clit hopefully peeping out from the curls. He murmured his pleasure and dipped two fingers into her, gathering moisture and laving it onto her pearl.
Nora whispered against his skin where she had been licking at his clavicle, “You make it look so comfortable I thought I would give it a try.”
With one hand he grabbed the beads at the back of her neck and firmly tightened them, while his other hand freed his cock, which rubbed against her slit for a less than a second before he thrust into place. Nora’s body felt like liquid fire and howling comfort and he stared at her, using the necklace to keep her far enough from him so he could see every shade of the orgasm as it built within her. Her panting becoming more desperate he tightened the necklace so very carefully, but she did not fight him. Then she started to flail and her cunt pulsed, pulling him as deep as it could and Nora’s eyes grew bleary with both the impending pleasure and the lack of air and then he let go and she fell backwards and he caught her and she came with her hips jerking up into his over and over and Loki let himself free and came to his own completion with her body clutched tightly to him.
Charles Brown stopped singing, and as they tried to catch their breaths there was the sound of the spindle dropping another record into place and Ella Fitzgerald began to sing :
When the bells all ring and the horns all blow
And the couples we know are fondly kissing.
Will I be with you or will I be among the missing?
“You still have your coat on,” Nora finally managed to say.
“So I do.”
Slowly, reluctantly it seemed, Loki pulled himself from her, still more than half-hard. He carefully lowered her to the ground, tucked himself away, and then removed the coat in question, dropping it on a chair. He looked at her the whole time, as if he was expecting her to bolt from the room.
“I should go, um, clean myself up.”
“If you must.”
“I know some guys are into the whole ‘leaking down’ a girl’s leg thing, but it’s cold.”
“I would never have you uncomfortable, treasure.” He followed her to the bathroom and before she could do anything he took the washcloth cleaned her himself, very completely.
Which was why they didn’t end up eating dinner for another hour.
After Loki complained about her wretched bed for a good portion of the night they both finally fell asleep.
Nora woke to Loki lying next to her, reading the book that she had gotten him for Christmas.
“You ass! Why did you open that!”
He leaned in, kissing around her words. “The package had my name on it. Thank you for this, it is quite unusual. I feel as if I understand you a bit better just from reading it.”
“But you are supposed to wait –“
“I have been waiting. For you to wake so I can see your expressions as you open your gifts. I have been extremely patient and I expect you to be proud of me for it.”
“Why do I bother?”
“Get up!”
Downstairs, after making coffee and cutting coffeecake, and ignoring Loki’s increasingly hilarious attempts to hurry her along, Nora finally sat on the floor in the living room, and not knowing how else to go about it, just grabbed the first box and started opening.
Most of the boxes contained clothing – a grey cashmere trench coat with a red silk lining, three black dresses in wool, linen, and cotton, dozens of simple blouses in soft colors, pants, shoes, boots, surprisingly practical and comfortable undergarments, sweaters, scarves, and warm socks and more. There were a few pieces of jewelry, most of it vintage and nothing too elaborate.
And, weirdly, a bar blender.
Looking at the spoils all together something about it was familiar. Very familiar. And not very Loki-like. There were two pairs of bowling shoes and not a ball gown in sight.
That blender. It was exactly the one she had wanted a couple years ago when it came out….
She turned on her heel, smiling and pointed at Loki, who was just starting in on his second coffeecake. “It’s my Pinterest My Style page! It is ALL of my Pinterest page, including the blender that I accidentally pinned there instead of on the For the Kitchen page.”
He nodded, looking a bit rueful. “Yes, sadly this is your style.”
“Jesus, I bought you a book.”
“Yes, but in that area your taste is excellent.”
She settled under his arm on the sofa, eating a bit of cake before it could make it to his mouth. “I should pack some of this to take to your place so I won’t be clothes-less again if you decide to destroy what I am wearing.”
“No need. There are duplicates for everything already there. Except for the blender. There was already one, it seems.”
“You’re too much.”